The Rookie: Watchable, Charming, but Delusional In Its Depiction of Police Work
The newest Nathan Fillion vehicle on the ABC network is not that far from his last turn on the network as the writer-turned-amateur-cop Richard Castle. The eponymous series was a great vehicle for the charismatic star because it allowed him to solve crimes but remain a kind of goofball character that worked with audiences. In The Rookie, Fillion plays the oldest rookie in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department, joining the force after divorcing his wife. He’s traded in the homicide investigations of Castle for the street-level police stories of the beat cop. The show succeeds in its main goal, to be entertaining. However, the nature of rising stakes and a general lack of courage to tackle controversial issues makes that street-level police work trend towards the absurd and ridiculous, and not in the good way like with Gotham.
Spoilers for the season so far below.
This isn’t a bad show, and it’s certainly not the worst example of shows that depict police — and the system in which they work — as some infallible…
